Chord Function, and Adding 7ths to Your Progressions

Adding 7th is a simple but effective way to add colour and alter the mood of a progression.

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Every chord you use in a song has a “function.” That term, function, is a technical musical term that means “a chord’s purpose or use.” If your song is in C major, for example, the C chord is called the tonic chord. “Tonic” is the technical name for the note C, so it’s the technical name for the chord you build on top of it. And “tonic” is the function of the chord. In typical usage, you might say something like “The C chord in the key of C major has a tonic function.” Each note of a scale has a technical name associated with it. Here they are, given in C major, with the chord (triad) representing each name listed afterward in bold:

1. C (I) TONIC – C
2. D (ii) SUPERTONIC – Dm
3. E (iii) MEDIANT – Em
4. F (IV) SUBDOMINANT – F
5. G (V) DOMINANT – G
6. A (vi) SUBMEDIANT –Am
7. B (vii) LEADING NOTE (or LEADING TONE) – Bdim

So each triad you might use in your song has a function. If, for instance, your song uses the progression I  IV  ii  V  I (C  F  Dm  G  C), you would describe it using technical names this way: “The progression starts on the tonic triad, moves to the subdominant, then the supertonic, then the dominant chord, finally ending on the tonic again.” Generally speaking, whatever notes you might add to the top of a triad — all those 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and so on — don’t change the function of a chord. For example, dominant chords like to move to tonic chords (that’s their function), and adding a 7th to a dominant chord (G7) doesn’t change that function: a dominant 7th chord still likes to move to a tonic chord. So you can add a 7th to any and all triads. That progression — C F Dm G C will still function the same, though it will have a different kind of appeal: Cmaj7  Fmaj7  Dm7  G7  Cmaj7. But how do you know if it’s supposed to be a major 7th or a minor 7th when you add them to a triad? That is determined by the notes that occur naturally in the key of your progression. That progression is in C major, and the notes for C major are: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. So if I want to know what kind of 7th to add to a C triad, count up 7 notes from the bottom note (counting the C as ‘1’). That means that the 7th you’d add to the C would be B: a major 7th. Counting up 7 from D gives you the note C: a minor 7th, and so on. You do the same thing for 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, and any other additions. Keep in mind that any time you add a note to a triad, you change the mood – the feel – of that triad. So you want to be careful as you use them. Some genres, like jazz, for example, make great use of added 11ths and 13ths, raising and lowering those added pitches for extra colour. So be sure to experiment with the effects before you commit to using them.

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

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